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Tuesday, October 16, 2018

[SCOOP] Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams Bound for Buckhead In 2019

Well placed sources tell ToNeTo Atlanta that Atlanta will get a fifth location of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, this time in Buckhead. The new "scoop shop" is slated to occupy a portion of the recently shuttered The North Face store in Buckhead Market Place along West Paces Ferry Road. (The North Face consolidated their Atlanta operations into a single store at Lenox Square.)

Photo from Morgan Farmer via IG

The shop will likely be about 1,000 square feet and will open alongside Velvet Taco, a Dallas, Texas-based quick serve taco joint that ToNeTo Atlanta was first to announce was opening this past July. A total of 3,401 square feet is currently available as part of the former North Face space, but it's highly unlikely that the ice cream shop would take a space larger than the taco shop. Typical Jeni's shops are about 1,000 square feet with some exceptions such as the "mini-Jeni's," a 91 square foot shop in a former barber shop in Columbus, Ohio or the 3,000 square foot shop in Washington D.C.

Jeni's, like Atlanta-based High Road Craft Ice Cream, produces a wide assortment of year-round and seasonal flavors, many of which are rather unique. Flavors offered by Jeni's include churro, sweet potato with torched marshmallow, goat cheese with red cherries, Riesling poached pear sorbet and frosé sorbet, among others.

Based in Columbus, Ohio, Jeni's sells ice cream and sorbet in grocery stores like The Fresh Market and Publix, as well as in their "Scoop Shops," of which they currently have four in metro Atlanta. The first shop in Atlanta opened at Westside Provisions in October 2013 and has been joined by subsequent locations on the Decatur Square and in Krog Street Market (November 2014) and most recently, at Avalon in Alpharetta last June.

Attempts to obtain confirmation of the ice cream shop's lease, size and planned opening were unsuccessful both from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams as well as from real estate firm Edens, which owns Buckhead Market Place.

Jeni Britton Bauer founded Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in 2002. Today, the company operates thirty-four Scoop Shops in eight states and Washington D.C. In 2015, the company was sidelined by two instances of listeria detected in its ice cream. In both cases, the company halted operations, pulled all products and reviewed everything about their production. They began to test every single batch of ice cream before it went out to be certain a listeria outbreak could never happen again.

The company has been listeria-free since the second listeria case of 2015, and is seemingly poised for continued expansion of its its retail foot-print.

Are you excited for the addition of Jeni's in Buckhead? What is your favorite ice cream shop? Where would you like to see Jeni's open next?

Jeni's Splendid is via Columbus OH, not NY. There are more stores outside central Ohio for a reason. Whit's Frozen Custard from the same region (Granville) is far superior and reasonably priced. It's baffling what people will pay for mediocrity.